Quanzhou

When Hilda's mother and nephew visited, Calliope, Anton, and I visited the Kaiyuan Temple there in Quanzhou. Although famous for a pair of stone pagodas that were built in the 13th century, we spent most of our time taking in the stone carving. Inside the temples, the carvings depicted various Buddhist themes and stories. The depth of the delicate carvings made the figures jump out of the stone.

Outside of the temples were many scenes from everyday life. I don't read many Chinese characters, so I guessed as to the underlying meanings of each panel. I was amazed to see a panel showing a street-sweeper. Truly, in Xiamen, there is an army of street-cleaners out and about, on any given day, at any given time. A panel with a swing hanging from what look like palm fronds caught my attention. We used to have a super-long rope swing hanging from a huge Cuban Laurel in our backyard. When we removed the tree, there were no other trees to support a rope swing; so, we have done without for many years. But we do have palm trees. I am still contemplating our palm-tree/rope-swing options. One panel looked like it could have been a depiction of a "dog-eat-dog" perspective on our universe. But, in this case, it was "fish-eat-fish". There were hundreds of these simple panels around the various courtyards, as well as many other items of interest. Today Calliope and I returned to Quanzhou to walk through China's only Maritime Museum. Quanzhou was at the heart of the ancient maritime silk route, and this museum chronicles China's boat-building history. Nobody we asked seemed to have ever heard of this museum. We walked in several directions and finally decided to take a cab. We figured we could count on a cab driver to know where all the museums were. Not! Calliope could say the name of the museum in Mandarin. We had it written in Chinese characters, but even the cab driver had to call a buddy to find out where this museum was. We arrived to find a deserted building. There wasn't a single tour bus; there were no other patrons; even the reception guards had abandoned their post. And although the museum was loaded with air conditioners, not one of them worked. It being a very hot day, we were driven to investigate. We found that some of the units were empty shells with no actual parts inside. We proceeded with caution.

My favorite parts of the museum were the detailed models of historic boat designs and materials. There were at least one hundred beautifully crafted models with descriptions as to their purpose and history, as well as the environments in which they were used. I include the following two models here, only because they made me laugh, and not because they were particularly important.

The Red Dragon Boat from the Ming dynasty, was "... a battleship designed to frighten the enemy with its terrifying appearance and color." And how many of the crew would fall for the old bottomless boat trick? It was described as a "... battleship designed to lure the enemy into leaping aboard, whereupon they would fall into the water and drown." Since many (most?) Chinese people today don't know how to swim, or don't know how to swim well, perhaps this devious boat worked better than I would expect. In Xiamen, I gave an adult friend a swimming lesson.

Part of the mission of the museum included glorifying China's fabulous history of inventing everything that had anything to do with boats. It's one thing to take pride in one's history and one's culture. It's quite another to use historical reinterpretation to claim credit for all of humanity's great inventions. Based only on the limited number of museums and rock inscriptions I have viewed, this is characteristically Chinese. Update: I have it from a reliable source that there is significant evidence to justify the claims surrounding China's invention of so much in the maritime world. There is a book that I have yet to read, called 1421, that documents this.

Quanzhou is also home to a marionette museum (no photography allowed). Puppetry has a long history in this area. We took refuge in the Guandi temple during a downpour and witnessed a long procession of people bringing paper money to the incinerator to burn for their ancestors We stopped for tea in the quaintest of tea houses. The menu was written on bamboo panels. There was an old mosque nearby. Traffic overflowed the streets onto the pedestrian sidewalks and crosswalks. We passed an alley where recyclers on foot, bicycle, and motorcycle were bringing their goods.